Artist's Statement

Artist's Statement

My artistic career is compelled by the idea that everyday fun, playfulness, and willingness to experiment can translate into works that are intimate in their essence yet bold and raw in their presentation.

My first artistic investigations centered on performance. In 2009 I completed a series of projects around the country, connecting my house in various locations and a friend’s house with a long piece of thin string, a gesture that investigates our relationship to space in urban environments and mimics the narratives and shared histories that are constructed in our daily lives over time. In 2009, I connected Machine Project Gallery, my home gallery, to the LA County Museum of Art as part of a group show at LACMA.

Subsequently, I returned to my studio in a more introverted mind frame and began making a series of abstract paintings that I imbued with the same unpolished yet elegantly brave sensibilities and a series of animal drawings highlighting the seriousness of play.

At the galleries, I gravitate towards the sweeping slashes of the abstract expressionists —I never tire of gazing on a Motherwell or Klein—and I’m also inspired by the quiet transcendence of a Richard Serra or DeWain Valentine sculpture. I enjoy sharing the sense of wonder that I conjure when visiting these masters, and I hope to infuse my work with the same reverently playful energy.

So far, the response to my work had been overwhelming: in my performance projects, inner city kids followed me for miles, telling me, “that string shit is dope,” and a middle aged man decided to wrap up my string behind me, and return it as a souvenir of “that amazing day when you did something totally unexpected.” A group of performance artists vowed to paint a stripe across the US in response to my project.

My paintings and drawings garner similar reactions; people seem to easily be able to share my sense of wonder at the world in which we live and drive to show the brighter, more intimate side of the mundane.